While President Bush was meeting with activists in Bangkok opposing the Myanmar military junta ahead of the Olympics in Beijing this week, Laura Bush was making her own headlines.

The First Lady stopped near Thailand’s border with Myanmar at a camp for refugees of the Karen ethnic group and at a clinic for civilian victims of land mines. The refugee camp is home to tens of thousands of desperate families. She singled out Myanmar’s senior general, Than Shwe, as being responsible for the plight of 140,000 refugees along the border. The Mae La camp, about six miles from the Myanmar border, opened almost 25 years ago and is filled with 39,000 refugees who are waiting to return home or be resettled elsewhere.

"The very best solution would be if the regime – Than Shwe’s regime – would start real dialogue and accept refugees in safety and security," Laura Bush said.

The United States has pushed for democratic reforms and offered millions of dollars in aid after Cyclone Nargis left 138,000 dead or missing in Myanmar. The May storm was the worst natural disaster in recorded history of the country. The junta has largely shunned international aid and strictly limited aid workers’ efforts, making it difficult to get supplies and help into the country to help the victims. It waited two weeks to allow its South Asian neighbors to send desperately needed help.

Reuters notes that Laura Bush’s Thursday visit came a day before the 20th anniversary of the August 8, 1988, uprising in Myanmar, when the army killed about 3,000 people in the military junta’s brutal suppression of protests. Myanmar’s military junta, which has ruled Burma for 40 years, has refused to accept losing a 1990 election and has cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators, killing thousands.

"Twenty years have gone by, everything is still the same or maybe worse in Burma," the First Lady said.

Laura Bush, who was a librarian for years before taking up her new position in the White House, also visited an English class in a makeshift school, accompanied by daughter Barbara.

“My life in refugee is better than Burma," one refugee boy wrote as he tried to construct a compound sentence, "but I don’t have opportunity to go outside camp."

She also visited a clinic that treats refugees and provides prosthetic limbs for those maimed by land mines trying to escape Myanmar.

Sean Turnell, a Myanmar specialist at Macquarie University in Sydney, told The International Herald Tribune that the focus on Myanmar during President Bush’s trip was due in large part to the First Lady’s interest in the country.

"I think it’s hard to overstate the influence of Laura," Turnell said.